The current controversy is different. Many people in Washington are irate over Wikileaks — not because the email were untrue but because they proved what many had long suspected . . . that Washington is a highly corrupt place full of truly despicable people. For people who make their living on controlling media and information, it was akin to the barbarians breaching the walls of Rome. So the answer is to call for government regulation to combat what will be declared “fake” news or propaganda. It is only the latest effort to convince people to surrender their rights and actually embrace censorship.

Watching Hillary Clinton attack “fake news” and calling for legislative action against free speech she doesn’t like got me thinking. Why is she doing this? Yes, it’s obviously related to her notorious personality trait of never taking responsibility for anything and attaching herself to an invented controversy in order to deflect blame for her monumentally embarrassing loss to Donald Trump. But there’s more going on here. A lot more.

To set the stage, we need to examine the types of people who are most jumping on the “fake news” meme. What you’ll find is that it’s a who’s who of the most contemptible and corrupt people in America. As Glenn Greenwald so accurately noted in his piece published earlier today:

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

But the problem here goes way beyond mere hypocrisy. Complaints about Fake News are typically accompanied by calls for “solutions” that involve censorship and suppression, either by the government or tech giants such as Facebook. But until there is a clear definition of “Fake News,” and until it’s recognized that Fake News is being aggressively spread by the very people most loudly complaining about it, the dangers posed by these solutions will be at least as great as the problem itself.

Just in case you think the above is an exaggeration, is there an individual in America more distrusted and more widely viewed as a compulsive liar than Hillary Clinton? The list of her outright lies

…

Tucker Carlson Takes on Washpo Reporter Who Claimed Trump Won Because of ‘Angry White Men’2016-12-10T00:57:32ZZero Hedge

The warm blanket that democrats wrap themselves in at night is a dream that angry white men will die off in large enough numbers so that a true renaissance of psychotic illiberals — like Jennifer Rubin — can rise to power and lead America into the next phase towards its ultimate demise. It’s a very potent and divisive thing for journalists to say, pretending to know the spirit and soul of men based upon the color of their skin. The lie, or fake news, of massive hordes of white men descending from their trailer park thrones on election night to vote for Trump, en masse, is a myth.

The same, so called racist, white men were the good folks who voted for Obama twice, once in 2008 and again in 2012 — so there’s always that.

Specifically tackling the argument of who voted for Trump, the numbers don’t lie. He received less white votes than Romney and 3x the amount of black Americans. Perhaps the very nervous and mentally addled Jennifer Rubin should set aside her confirmation bias prior to making scathing allegations about a race of people. Then again, it’s rather trendy to deride and to shame white people these days, isn’t it?

Jennifer Rubin and her ilk are perfect examples of why democrats have lost over 900 legislative offices over the past 6 years and hold just 11 governorships. The party, literally, is dying. When it comes to the discussion of race and moving on, I believe Morgan Freeman had the best public response to a journalist in recent times. It was short, poignant, and absolutely true.

The headlines tell us that the Dow Jones is up around 1,000 points since Donald Trump won the election on November 8th. The conventional wisdom is that this shows how much confidence people have in Trump’s ability to generate a healthy American economy. The argument is that if people are willing to buy stock in American firms, this indicates their belief that those firms will see improving profits over the next few years. They then draw the conclusion that more profitable firms indicate a healthier American economy.

Although this argument is correct about stock prices reflecting an increasing belief in the profitability of US firms, it makes a major error in assuming that profitable firms necessarily mean a better economy.

The Economy Isn’t A Thing

First, it’s important to understand that phrases like “a healthier economy” are themselves problematic. The “economy” is not the thing we should be concerned about. In fact, in some fundamental sense there’s no such thing as “the economy.” As Russ Roberts and John Papola memorably put it in the music video “Fight of the Century:”

The economy’s not a car.There’s no engine to stall.No experts can fix it.There’s no “it” at all.The economy is us

Things are not “good/bad for the economy.” They are good or bad for the people who comprise the market process, specifically in our capacity as consumers. All the economy amounts to is people engaging exchanges in order to better satisfy their wants. What we should care about is whether or not people are able to better satisfy those wants.

And “better satisfy” here means not just more and better goods and services, but at cheaper prices too. Lower prices mean that consumers have income left over to purchase goods they otherwise couldn’t, enabling them to better satisfy their wants by satisfying more of them.

Distorted Signals

In a genuinely free market, the profitability of firms is a good reflection of their ability to better satisfy the wants of consumers. Our willingness to pay for their goods and services reflects the fact that we receive value from those products, so their profits are at least a general signal of having created that value and satisfied consumer wants.

…

Record High Lease Returns Set To Wreak Havoc On Used Car Prices2016-12-10T00:00:00ZZero Hedge

About a month ago we warned that declining used car prices could spell disaster for subprime auto securitizations (see “Slumping Used Car Prices Spell Disaster For Subprime Auto Securitizations“). While it’s always difficult to predict the exact timing of when bubbles will burst, a combination of record-high lease returns in 2017 and 2018, combined with rising interest rates could imply that the auto bubble is on the precipice.

As Bloomberg recently pointed out, strong used car pricing is a critical component required to prop up the overall auto market. While American’s love their brand new cars, if used car prices become too soft then substitution can hurt new car sales. Add to that the impact of falling residual values on the finance arms of the auto OEMs and you have all the ingredients required for an auto market meltdown.

Thanks in part to low interest rates, leasing has become an increasingly popular way to drive away a new car. It accounts for almost a third of all new car transactions in the U.S. and it’s also huge in the U.K., as I explained here. For BMW and Mercedes-Benz in particular, it’s been a boon for sales.

Typically a lease lasts about three years, after which the customer returns to the showroom for another vehicle — which is when things could get difficult for the industry.

“There’s going to be a lot of units coming back over the next several years,” Ford Motor Co. warned last month. “They’re going to get to levels that we have never seen on an absolute basis in the industry before”.

In 2017, about one million more off-lease vehicles will be available in the U.S. compared with 2015. That additional volume will put downward pressure on used car prices.

If cars depreciate too quickly, consumers will be unwilling to pay high prices for new vehicles. High residual values also help to keep monthly lease payments low. In other words, if used car prices fall, the whole system comes unstuck: automakers’ earnings will likely fall and car finance companies (often a subsidiary of the manufacturer) may have to book writedowns on the value of their leased assets.

As the following chart depicts, with nearly 1mm more cars coming off lease

The wailing and keening over the choice of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the EPA appears to be a lead indicator of a coming revolution far beyond Reagan’s.

“Trump Taps Climate Skeptic For Top Environmental Post,” said The Wall Street Journal. “Climate Change Denial,” bawled a disbelieving New York Times, which urged the Senate to put Pruitt in a “dust bin.”

Clearly, though his victory was narrow, Donald Trump remains contemptuous of political correctness and defiant of liberal ideology.

For environmentalism, as conservative scholar Robert Nisbet wrote in 1982, is more than the “most important social movement” of the 20th century. It is a militant and dogmatic faith that burns heretics.

“Environmentalism is well on its way to becoming the third great wave of redemptive struggle in Western history,” wrote Nisbet, “the first being Christianity, the second modern socialism.” In picking a “climate denier” to head EPA, Trump is rejecting revealed truth.

Yet, as with his choices of Steve Bannon as White House strategist and Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general, he has shown himself to be an unapologetic apostate to liberal orthodoxy.

Indeed, with his presidency, we may be entering a post-liberal era.

In 1950, literary critic Lionel Trilling wrote, “In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation.”

The rise of the conservative movement of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan revealed liberalism’s hour to be but a passing moment. Yet, today, something far beyond conservatism seems to be afoot.

As Hegel taught, in the dialectic of history the thesis calls into existence the antithesis. What we seem to be seeing is a rejection, and a counterreformation against the views and values that came out of the social and political revolutions of the 1960s.

Consider the settled doctrine Trump disrespected with Pruitt.

We have long been instructed that climate change is real, that its cause is man-made, that it imperils the planet with rising seas, hurricanes and storms, that all nations have a duty to curb the release of carbon dioxide to save the world for future generations.

Earlier this week we warned that as the trend to robotization accelerates, millions of (mostly) low-skilled American jobs will be lost in the next five years, replaced by robots as companies seek to maintain high profit margins in a time of rising wages and growing inflation. One company, however, can not wait that long.

British outsourcing giant Capita, a company whose contracts include collecting the BBC license fee, is preparing to fire thousands and replace them with robots after clients cut spending following Brexit vote in a move some fear will be repeated across the country, leading to more than 1 million job losses according to the Guardian. Capita, a FTSE 100-listed firm that also runs the London congestion charge, said it needed to axe 2,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting drive in response to poor trading. The company said it would use the money it saved to fund investment into robotic workers across the whole company.

The announcement has led to more concerns the world is a facing fourth industrial revolution powered by artificial intelligence (AI) which will result in unprecedented job losses.

According to RT, a study published by Oxford University and consultancy firm Deloitte in October predicted there is a 77 percent probability Britain will lose 1.3 million “repetitive and predictable” administrative and operative jobs within 15 years. More than 850,000 public sector jobs – including teachers, social workers and even police officers – could also be replaced by computer programs. British MPs warned in October the government is unprepared for the coming technological revolution; the same can be said about the US.

The Science Technology Committee said the government’s role in preparing for the impact of AI is “lacking” and cautioned that “science fiction is slowly becoming science fact, and robotics and AI look destined to play an increasing role in our lives over the coming decades.”

Capita saw its shares drop to a 10 year low at one point following its December statement, in which the company announced it would be selling off assets and trimming costs to protect its balance sheet after Brexit. The company will use robots to help eliminate human error and make decisions faster, said chief executive Andy Parker. Parker is in no immediate danger of being

…

Global Warm-Ongering: What Happens If Trump Takes US Out Of Paris Agreement?2016-12-09T22:30:00ZZero Hedge

Donald Trump has sent his clearest message yet about his plans for reshaping US policy on global warming by choosing a chief environmental regulator who has questioned the science of climate change.

But leading experts say the nomination of Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney-general as head of the Environmental Protection Agency and the policy he pursues, may have less effect than many imagine on global greenhouse gas emissions.

Analysis by PwC, the financial services firm, shows G20 countries need to reduce their carbon intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide they emit for every dollar of GDP they produce — by an annual average of 3 per cent to meet their Paris agreement targets.

Even if the US abandoned the deal it would have a limited direct impact on the overall G20 effort. If all other countries stayed on track to meet their carbon targets, but the US returned to business as usual, the average annual cut for the G20 as a whole would only fall slightly, from 3 per cent to 2.8 per cent.

That is chiefly because of market developments such as the US shale gas boom that has squeezed out coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, a situation some think unlikely to change no matter what Mr Trump does.

“The impact on the global emissions projection is pretty small even if the US shelves its Paris target,” said Jonathan Grant, a director of climate and sustainability at PwC.

He emphasised the contribution of market and technological shifts to tackling emissions growth adding “it’s doubtful that can be thrown into reverse by one country”.

According to various anecdotal reports, in addition to launching the stock markets on an unprecedented meltup, Trump’s presidential victory has also boosted consumer confidence, leading to a spike in post-election spending.

That, however, is not only not validated by the actual data, but according to evidence, retail spending – a key component of the Trump “hope” trade – has actually slowed down.

One snapshot of what consumers did pre- and post-elections comes from the latest Bank of America credit and debit card data. The bank pulled daily card data and calculated “core control” sales which it defines as retail sales ex-autos, building materials, gasoline and groceries. It then indexed this spending on election day and compared it to the trends after the 2012 and 2008 elections. Noting the weekly pattern where sales pick up on the weekend, it finds that spending after the election was in line with the prior two election years. This year, sales accelerated a bit more as we approached the holiday season, however slowed down modestly in the days after. Overall, as BofA says, “there is little evidence of a particularly strong post-election boost in spending this year.“

A more interesting report, one which relies on satellite imagery to look at parking lot activity of multiple US retailers in the pre and post election season, as well as over the critical Thanksgiving and Black Friday period, comes from JPMorgan. The summary conclusion: the analysis suggests significant activity weakness at core US retail locations, as JPM finds “that Y/Y activity trends worsened post the election contrary to stock market moves and color from some management teams.”

Here are JPM’s findings:

Leveraging Satellite big data. We are leveraging our own ability to manipulate and analyze large data sets against proprietary parking lot car count data from Orbital Insight. Orbital Insight collects satellite imagery and then applies proprietary machine learning based image recognition technology to count cars in parking lots on a daily basis. The data we are using here is comprised of over 280k daily datapoints spanning multiple years.

Big picture trends negative. We observe a deterioration of total car counts in aggregate that has taken place more post the election than prior to it. We find this interesting as it is counter to prevailing thought on Thanksgiving demand but

Earlier today, president Obama started a witch hunt based on Russia hacking claims.

In the second Russia-related story of the day, Yves Smith, author of Naked Capitalism, considers a lawsuit against the Washington Post for an extremely sloppy article on “Fake News”, primarily about Russia that mentioned her website.

The article listed Naked Capitalism, Zero Hedge, and 200 other sites for “spreading fake news”. Included in the list were Counterpunch, the Drudge Report, Truthdig, and Truth-out.

The Washington Post—whose coverage of Watergate four decades ago angered the powers that be, toppled a president, and defined courageous journalism—has unleashed a hornet’s nest of a different sort, one unlikely to earn a Pulitzer Prize.

The story, by Post technology reporter Craig Timberg and published Nov. 24, purported to reveal how “sophisticated” Russian propagandists had spread fake news through hundreds of web sites to destabilize American democracy, thwart Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump to the White House.

So far the story—which has attracted millions of page views and more than 14,000 comments—has provoked lawsuit threats from at least two of the web sites, notably the widely respected financial blog Naked Capitalism, which fired off a legal letter demanding a retraction and apology even though the Post story does not specifically mention Naked Capitalism or any of the other allegedly Russian-influenced websites.

“I thought it was completely ridiculous that the Post would put this sorry piece of trash on the front page,” Andrew Cockburn, the Washington editor of Harper’s magazine, told The Daily Beast in a typically vehement slam.

“The ‘Washington Post’ ‘Blacklist’ Story Is Shameful and Disgusting,” was the headline on Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi’s takedown.

The critics panned the Post story’s heavy reliance on the judgments of unnamed “researchers” for PropOrNot.com, a shadowy website launched three months ago ostensibly to expose “Russian influence operations targeted at US audiences, distinguish between propaganda and commercial ‘clickbait’, and help identify propaganda and push back.”

Naked Capitalism’s editor “Yves Smith,” the pen name of investment advisor Susan Webber who launched the blog in 2006,

…

Cash Is No Longer King: The Phasing Out Of Physical Money Has Begun2016-12-09T21:30:00ZZero Hedge

As physical currency around the world is increasingly phased out, the era where “cash is king” seems to be coming to an end. Countries like India and South Korea have chosen to limit access to physical money by law, and others are beginning to test digital blockchains for their central banks.

The war on cash isn’t going to be waged overnight, and showdowns will continue in any country where citizens turn to alternatives like precious metals or decentralized cryptocurrencies. Although this transition may feel like a natural progression into the digital age, the real motivation to go cashless is downright sinister.

Sacrificing the stability of national currencies has been used as a way prop up failing private institutions around the globe. By kicking the can down the road yet another time, bureaucrats and bankers sealed the fate of the financial system as we know it.

A currency war has been declared, ensuring that the U.S. dollar, Euro, Yen and many other state currencies are linked in a suicide pact. Printing money and endlessly expanding debt are policies that will erode the underlying value of every dollar in people’s wallets, as well as digital funds in their bank accounts. This new war operates in the shadows of the public’s ignorance, slowly undermining social and economic stability through inflation and other consequences of central control. As the Federal Reserve leads the rest of the world’s central banks down the rabbit hole, the vortex it’s creating will affect everyone in the globalized economy.

Peter Schiff, president of Euro-Pacific Capital, has written several books on the state of the financial system. His focus is on the long-term consequences of years of government and central bank manipulation of fiat currencies:

“Never in the course of history has a country’s economy failed because its currency was